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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real
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An imprint of Bonnier Publishing USA
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Copyright © 2017 by Bonnier Publishing USA
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Kent, Jaden, author. | Bodnaruk, Iryna, illustrator.
Title: The cave of Aaaaah! doom! / by Jaden Kent; illustrated by Iryna Bodnaruk.
Description: First edition. | New York: Little Bee Books, [2017] | Series: Ella and Owen; #1 | Summary:
A young dragon named Ella convinces her twin brother Owen to join her on a bold quest to find
a wizard that will help cure Owen of his flaming cold. | Identifiers: LCCN 2016003000 | Subjects:
| CYAC: Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. |
Dragons—Fiction. | Ghouls and ogres—Fiction. | Wizards—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Humorous
stories. Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K509 Cav 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 | LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016003000
First Edition 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 6 5 3 1
ISBN 978-1-4998-0393-8 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4998-0368-6 (pb)
littlebeebooks.com
bonnierpublishingusa.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHEN DRAGONS SNEEZE
1:
GULPING GRUMPKINS
2:
THE OGRE’S FEAST
3:
THE CAVE OF AAAAAH! DOOM!
4:
VEGETABLES ARE EVIL!
5:
DRAGON BUNNIES!
6:
DRAGON BUNNIES?
7:
ORLOCK THE NOT-SO-EVIL WIZARD
8:
LOST!
9:
1
WHEN DRAGONS SNEEZE
On the other side of Fright Mountain,
through the Fog of Screams and past
the Waterfall of Destruction, was a place
where only knights in shining armor dared
to go when they wanted to impress a
princess.
At the bottom of the other side of the
mountain was Dragon Patch. Dozens of
dragons lived there in dozens of stone
houses.
That’s right.
Dragons!
Do you know all there is to know about
dragons? Here are a few important things:
They have really stinky breath—actually,
really stinky fire breath.
You can ride them like a flying horse!
They have wings.
And claws.
And their favorite dessert
is pickled-fish Popsicles!
Is there more?
You bet! They
sometimes get sick. And
when fire-breathing
dragons sneeze, you
had better run for cover. . . .
“AH-CHOO!”
A ball of fire shot from Owen’s mouth. It
shot across his bedroom, out the window,
and then lit on fire a toadstool that his twin
sister, Ella, was sitting on.
“Blazing scales! You made me drop my
spider snail!” Ella said as her eight-legged
pet slimed away. Very slowly.
“Sorry,” Owen said.
“You’ve been sick since forever,” Ella
said. “At least five whole days. And fire
sneezes are not normal.”
“But I’m okay being sick,” Owen said.
Owen may have been okay being sick,
but there was a long list of things Owen
wasn’t okay with. The top three were:
Owen was very okay having a cold
because it meant he could stay in bed and
read. All day. Owen loved to read about
dragons. He especially loved books about
dragons who defeated knights in shining
armor.
“Mom says if I keep the slugs out of my
ears and eat my slime, I’ll be flying around
in no time,” Owen explained as he lifted a
large rock and slurped the green gunk on
the bottom. Owen’s nose wiggled. He was
going to sneeze again. “Ah ... ah ... ah ...”
Ella flew into Owen’s bedroom cave and
grabbed a bucket of cold swamp water
that was sitting by his bed. She threw it
into his open mouth before he could sneeze
flames. Steam puffed from his ears.
“There! That should do it!” Ella said.
Owen quickly shook his head. “AH-
CHOO!” he sneezed.
A spray of water shot from his mouth
and soaked Ella.
“Yuck! Sick brother!” Ella shook like a
wet pixie at Lava Lake.
“Mom says I’ll be fine in, like, a day or
two . . . or ten.” Owen turned away from
his sister, cracked open a very good book
about a dragon who defeated an evil
wizard made of vegetables, and began to
read.
“I don’t want you to be sick anymore,”
Ella said.
“Aww . . . thanks for caring, Sis!” Owen
said.
“Well, it’s kinda mostly because I know
Mom will make me do your chores if you’re
sick,” Ella admitted.
Owen looked straight ahead and ignored
his sister.
She tried to get his
attention again. “So,
I’ve heard of a cave
where a mystical wizard
dragon has a secret cure
for everything. He once
changed a frog into a
toad. He even turned a
potato into something
called a French fry—or so
I’m told.”
“Sorry, I don’t want to go,”
Owen said and went back to reading his
book.
“But it’ll be an awesome adventure!” Ella
said.
“Now for sure I don’t want to go,” he
said.
“And exciting!” Ella added.
“I double even more don’t want to go.”
He turned a page in his book. The evil
wizard made of vegetables had just cast a
broccoli spell.
“And we can collect
ogre toenails for your
ogre toenail collection,”
Ella said and sighed.
“Ogre toenail
s?”
Owen closed his book
and sat up in his bed.
“Oooh! Now I want to go!”
The excitement of the
toenails made his nose twitch.
Then twitch again. Then “AH-CHOO!”
Fire shot from his nose, and the force
of the sneeze threw him across the room.
He bounced off the wall and tumbled
across the cave.
Owen rubbed his nose with his tail. “Just
one question. What’s the name of this
dragon wizard guy?”
“Dragon Wizard Orlock Morlock. He
lives in a cave,” Ella said.
“Does the cave have a name?” Owen
asked.
“Nope,” she said.
“Not possible,” Owen replied. “All caves
have names, according to the Cave Naming
Rules of Sir Stonecastle Rockhound. Like,
there’s the Cave of Evil Bunny Rabbits,
the Cave of Evil Fairies, the Cave of Evil
Unicorns. . . .”
“Those creatures don’t sound very
friendly,” Ella said.
“Uh, yeah. Why do you think they live in
caves?” Owen answered.
“Well, this place is just called the, uh,
Cave of, uh, Caves,” Ella explained.
“Because it’s a cave full of caves. That
“I don’t know.” Owen began to have
second thoughts. “It sounds kinda iffy. . . .”
“Ogre toenails!” Ella reminded him with
a hopeful smile.
Owen got excited again. “What are we
waiting for? Let’s go!”
The two rushed from their cave, wings
flapping.
Ella didn’t tell Owen that she made up the
name the Cave of Caves. She also didn’t
tell him the cave was really called the Cave
of Aaaaah! Doom!
But don’t worry. Owen figured that one
out soon enough.
2
GULPING GRUMPKINS
The trail disappeared into the forest. The
dirt path was long gone, covered in weeds.
As they walked, the twins heard an animal
howl nearby.
“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Owen asked.
“I did not get us lost!” Ella said
defensively.
“This is what I get for following you,”
Owen huffed.
“I’ll have you know that I’m using my . . .
uh . . . using my cave-finding dragon skills
to find the Cave of Caves!” Ella exclaimed.
“Dragons don’t have cave-finding skills,”
Owen said. “You’re making that up.”
“Quiet please. I will first use my sense
of dragon smell to find the trail. . . .”
“We don’t have dragon smell,” Owen
said.
“Shhh . . . the cave is this way,” she said
as she pointed straight ahead.
Thinking quickly, Ella picked up a rock
and held it to one ear. “Now I will hold up
this rock and listen to what it says. . . .” she
said.
“I think that’s only for seashells down
at Firebreather Beach,” Owen said.
“Shhh,” she shushed. “It’s telling me the
way.” Ella pointed forward. “There!” she
said.
“You expect me to believe that?” Owen
asked.
“The rock speaks the truth,” Ella said.
Owen reluctantly followed Ella
deeper into the forest. They went past
the dragonberry bushes, over Unicorn
Bridge, and down into the Forest of
Shadows, until the trees blocked out
the sun.
Owen looked around. “I think your rock
got us more lost than you did.”
Ella shook the rock. “It must’ve lost its
power in the forest,” she said nervously.
“Great. Now we’re even more
lost,” Owen said, “because of a rock.”
“Shhh . . . I’m thinking,” she said.
Instead of being quiet, Owen shouted,
“Ella! Look over there!”
Owen took off, wings flapping. “It’s a
tree sprite! Being lost just got so much
better!”
Fluttering between the branches of an
old willow tree was something truly rare.
It was a tiny rainbow-colored creature
flapping its wings as it moved under the
leaves.
“Tree sprite? Really?” said
Ella. “Looks more like a water
sprite to me.”
“It wants to play!” Owen
said as he chased the
sprite.
The sprite peeked out
from around a leaf and
then zoomed off.
Owen was about to chase it again,
but he realized just in time
that he was at the edge of
a steep hill. “Whoa! That
was close,” he said as his
claws grasped the edge
of the hill. He waved
good-bye as the sprite
flew away.
Ella ran to catch up,
but she crashed into
Owen. Together, they fell
over the edge.
“We’re—” said Owen.
BOUNCE!
“Falling—” said Ella.
BOING!
“Down—” said Owen.
BOING!
“The hill!” said Ella.
BOUNCE!
They tumbled to the
“OOOMPH!”
bottom and landed in a prickle patch filled
with vines. On the vines were bright-green
melons that looked like big monster heads.
“Grumpkins!” cried Owen.
“Ooh!” Ella said. “I hear they’re delicious!”
“I’m not eating
anything that looks
like it has a face,”
said Owen, “even if
it is a fruit.”
“Suit yourself.”
Ella popped a
grumpkin into her
mouth and spit
the seeds onto the
ground. “That’s so
good it makes my
scales shiver.”
“Umm . . . I wouldn’t
eat any more of those,” Owen said. He
pointed to a sign that said: NO EATING! EXCEPT
ME EATING YOU!
Ella ignored her brother’s warning. She
grabbed another plump grumpkin.
Owen snatched it from her. “Not a good
idea,” he said.
“But a tasty one,” she said.
“But the sign!” Owen said nervously.
“Signs aren’t as yummy.” Ella swung
her tail around like a whip. She poked the
pointy end into the grumpkin and pulled it
from Owen.
The long vine attached to the grumpkin
pulled back tightly. Ella pulled harder. “It’s
stuck on something,” she said.
Owen followed the vine. It wrapped
around a tree branch over their heads. At
the end of the vine was a large wooden
cage. “Uh, Ella, you should really let go. . . .”
he said.
SNAP!
The vine broke in half.
A cage released and
dropped over the two
dragons.
“Now you’ve done it!”
&nbs
p; Owen squealed. “You
got us lost, and now
we’re trapped—trapped
like, well, dragons in a
cage in the middle of
nowhere.”
“You wanted adventure
and excitement, right?” Ella said. “This is
it!”
“I didn’t want either of those things!”
Owen grabbed the cage and shook it. “I
don’t suppose you have any dragon sense
for cage-breaking?” Owen asked.
The bushes rustled. The sound of two
stomping feet came toward them. A large
green creature stepped into the clearing.
Flies swarmed around his head. His wart-
covered legs poked from his purple shorts.
When he spoke, a cloud of belly moths shot
past his yellow teeth and filled the air.
“Caught two dragons for lunch! That is
what I have done,” the ogre said.
“You’re serving lunch?” Ella asked.
“I don’t think we’re his guests,” Owen
said. “I think we’re his lunch. . . .”
3
THE OGRE’S FEAST
“But you can’t eat us!” Owen cried out.
“Our scales are tough like tree bark,”
Ella said. “Our stomachs are full of beetle
skeletons, and we taste terrible!” Ella
turned and licked her brother. “Blegh!
See?! He tastes awful!” she said.
“Sorry, I’ve been sick,” Owen said. “My
nose is full of dragon boogers and fire.”
Ella and Owen sat in their cage on the
floor of the ogre’s messy hut. The barefoot
ogre stomped over to them. “Osgood
Ogresteen. That is who I am,” he said. “Of
the ogres in Ogreville, I am the mean one.
Eating dragons, that’s what I do.”